Rider #521

Time: 9:23 am, June 18, 2010
Location: New Ulm, MN
Odometer: 10,364

I chose the Hermann Monument in New Ulm for two reasons, one special, and one a bit morbid, which I thought would appeal to Eddie's slightly twisted sense of humor.

As you can see, I took the photo from the park far below the actual statue (and I apologize for the photo not being a little better). There's a reason for this.
My grandparents lived in New Ulm when I was young, and the hill on which the monument sits was where my cousins and I would go sledding every Christmas, down the hill and into the park where the photo was taken. This hill is BIG and its a wonder nobody got seriously hurt, but we were dumb little kids, and we didn't know any better. Sadly, a number of years ago, the city put up a fence to prevent that from happening - everyone's so safety minded these days...

With Eddie's Road being about helping kids, I thought it appropriate to leave my little bit of Eddie in a place that has a special place from my own childhood. Hopefully the foundation can help some other kids have some really cool memories like I have of this hill in New Ulm.

Ok, now the morbidly funny part, though it didn't seem so at the time...

When I was probably about 5 or 6, I was staying with my grandparents for a week in the summer. They took me up to the park at the top of the hill where the actual monument is. You can kind of see in the middle of the monument that there's a stairway and you can walk up to the actual base of the statue itself. I INSISTED on going up there, against grandma's wishes and ran off up the stairway with her trying to catch me. Of course once I got up there, I was terrified. When you're only three feet tall or so, you don't come up to the top of the railing, and I remember clutching onto a post, screaming for my grandparents to come and save me. Of course this resulted in a nice big lecture, and I blame this incident, which was 100% my own fault, for my lifelong fear of heights! To this day, I've never again been to the top of the Hermann Monument in New Ulm. I guess even then I had a tendency to do crazy things that I shouldn't do, and maybe that's why I ended up a "Stranger."

As I said in my earlier message, I feel honored and privileged to have been asked to take part in this special bonus to help honor Eddie. Thank you so much for including me.